Parcel Panic: Post Car Racing 3D

Like Sega’s seminal Crazy Taxi, Parcel Panic: Post Car Racing 3D isn’t a straightforward racer as such, although you are fighting against the clock.

Instead of rushing to the finish line, the objective is to collect various packages and successfully transport them to their destination as quickly as is possible.

You have a set amount of time within each level which is extended the faster your drop-off your goods. Once the clock runs down to zero your courier crisis is over and your score tallied: in short, the more deliveries you can make, the better.

Parcel Panic employs tilt steering: turning the handset as you would a steering wheel allows you to determine the direction of your vehicle. Acceleration and braking are handled via on-screen buttons, and to reverse you simply hold down your finger on the brake.

The action takes place across one sprawling map. While this might seem a little meagre, it’s worth noting that the city is surprisingly complex.

On-screen prompts ensure you don’t get hopelessly lost, too. Once you’ve collected your goods, an arrow appears showing the general direction in which you should be heading.

In addition, you also have a dotted green line on the ground highlighting the preferred route. Numerous shortcuts are waiting to be exploited, though, and finding these allows you to significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to make each delivery, which means you can push your high score even higher.

It sounds like a mad, chaotic dash against time, but hurling your fully-laden truck around the bumpy landscape is only going to result in failure. The slightest knock is enough to jettison one of your precious packages and when you consider that you’re scored on how many boxes you successfully convey to each location, that can prove disastrous.

To complement the slick and thoroughly addictive gameplay, Parcel Panic boasts some truly sumptuous visuals. There may only be one map to play on but it’s insanely detailed, packed with quant cottages, rolling hills and even a harbour. It runs well on older handsets, too, with a smooth performance on iPhone 3G.

One thing the Parcel Panic struggles to offer is prolonged appeal - it doesn’t take long for the single map to become too familiar. A change of scenery would help keep things fresh.

Also, while the default accelerometer sensitivity is acceptable, there were a couple of times when we wished we could tinker with it slightly. Tight turns are often difficult to make without aggressive iPhone-flinging.

Still, these concerns don’t prevent the game from providing much in the way of entertainment. If you’re after a light-hearted driving title which offers entertaining and enthralling gameplay then Parcel Panic delivers.